Artist Rob Clark sits with framed pages from his New Orleans sketchbook which will be on display in the exhibition “Extracting the Light” at the Beaumont Art League.
Photo by Andy Coughlan
Artist Rob Clark sstands with framed pages from his New Orleans sketchbook which is on display in the exhibition “Extracting the Light” at the Beaumont Art League.
Photo by Andy Coughlan
A drawing of “Dumas” from Rob Clark’s New Orleans sketchbook which is on display in the exhibition “Extracting the Light” at the Beaumont Art League.
Photo by Andy Coughlan
When Rob Clark was a youngster, his father forbade him from visiting New Orleans. But the allure of the Crescent City never left. Clark spent seven years, sketchbook in hand, detailing the city and its inhabitants.
Now visitors will get to see the pages of Clark’s sketchbook in his exhibition “Extracting the Light,” on display through July 1 at the Beaumont Art League. The show is Clark’s prize for winning the 2025 membership show.
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“I was not allowed to go to New Orleans to spend time, because my father was offended by the city and scared, I think, mostly scared of it,” Clark said. “I never had any reactions that were negative with anybody down there.”
Clarks meticulously rendered drawings, created with a series of cross-hatched lines, depict the city’s architecture and inhabitants.
“I got access to people that never allowed anyone to draw their pictures,” he said. “They were asking me, ‘Why do you want to draw me?’ I explained that this is going to be a chronology of New Orleans.”
One of the earliest pieces in the show depicts Dumas, a homeless man Clark met.
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“I was in New Orleans and sitting, and he was sitting next to me, and I said, ‘Would you like something to eat? I’ll get something for you or coffee.’ And he says,‘I’m homeless, but I can find food,’” Clark said. “I said, ‘I honor that. But I said I was going to have you sit with me and have something. I was going to also have something, and I was going to draw your picture.’ And he wanted to know why I wanted to draw his picture. I said, ‘I love your soul.’ And I just ended it with that. And he said, OK. And he sat for me to draw that on site, so it’s very quick.”
As the anecdote shows, Clark is deeply invested in the world around him. Each drawing has a story that Clark is willing to share. As he looks at the images framed for the show, Clark talks about a man he met who was sitting on a park bench in the square watching his children. The man said he was dying of cancer.
“I said, ‘What a wonderful place to be, to feel a spirit and to watch your children enjoying and doing this,” Clark said. “So, we had a long conversation.”
Clark gave the man the name of a doctor in Houston, and the man is still alive.
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“So, I took this and made a print for him and his children so they’d have it,” Clark said.
The New Orleans sketchbook features interesting people Clark has met and, fittingly for an architect, images of the city’s unique architecture. Clark points out details and stories in each drawing as he looks at each framed page.
Clark said he gets his philosophy from his maternal grandfather who had a doctorate in theology from New Orleans seminary, but was not a typical preacher.
“He was very much about being involved with community and what are you doing to help a family?” Clark said. “Do you hand them vegetables? Do you talk to them? Do you let the difficulties of a relationship give them a chance to vent and talk? Who are you in other people’s lives?
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“The drawings are kind of these visits with these people. People didn’t turn down me being able to draw them. So, it says something about not being threatening.”
The drawings capture not just the people he meets but also the backgrounds which give them a sense of energy.
“I’m not hiding the lines,” Clark said. “You can get in there and you can see all the lines and everything they’ve drawn, but it’s the layers.”
Clark works on each piece one at a time to retain the consistency of the cross-hatching across the drawing.
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The second section of the exhibition features a series of drawings of the Atchafalaya Basin created over the past year.
“These are all about the light and what’s happening,” he said. “It’s the water in different points. There’s an energy to all this stuff.”
Clark typically makes an initial concept sketch and then will take photographs to, as he said, memorize what’s peripheral.
“I love that term that artists use, ‘What’s happening off the canvas,’” he said.
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Clark has never before torn a single page out of his sketchbook and said pulling out the drawings to frame them for the show was an emotional experience. The drawings are not window mounted but float on top of the mat to remind people it is the original drawing.
“You can see it because some of these have aged from my hands and they have a tone to them,” he said.
The simple lines build layers of complexity that draw the viewer in, inviting us to take the time to engage with the world. Clark said he hopes people will look at the works in the exhibition and ask themselves a simple question.
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“Am I missing half my life by not looking at the things around (me)?” he said.
The Beaumont Art League is located at 2675 Gulf St. For more, visit beaumontartleague.us.